Yours Remotely

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

I had managed to persuade Sinead to come and see The Remotes with me on New Year’s Eve. I wasn’t even entirely sure why I wanted to go to this gig so badly. After all, I only knew one of the band’s songs and I had no intention of becoming a stalker just because I had bumped into the band members a couple of times.

There we were anyway, Sinead, I and - to my disappointment - Miguel. I thought that New Year’s Eve was the worst possible time for a first date, but I hadn’t mentioned this opinion to Sinead. Even if I had, it would only have meant that I would have gone to the gig alone. On the other hand, that may have been a better option since Sinead and Miguel were glued to each other and not able to keep their hands off each other. Miguel was better-looking than most of Sinead’s men. At least he had hair, a black messy mullet, but he also seemed to have hair in all the wrong places. I had concluded this by the hair spilling out of his half-buttoned shirt and by his hairy arms. Personality wise, I had nothing good to say. Miguel no longer bothered even trying to be polite.

Sitting at our little round table and feeling bored, I looked around. Energy was known for its live music, and during the years, it had played host to many big names - although usually before they were big names. It was a three-storey building. The ground floor was below the stage, the first floor- and by far the most popular - was level to the stage although not right beside it, and the second floor – where we were sat - was above the stage. We had managed to get a seat right beside the railing and a reasonably good view of the stage.

The place was busy, and most women were in dresses or miniskirts. Because I wasn’t local, I knew nobody apart from my companions. It was well past 11, and there was no indication that the gig was about to start, apart from a few technicians busying themselves on the stage. The sides of the stage and the walls of the nightclub were decorated with promotional posters of The Remotes. I felt an almost irresistible urge to pinch one, but I didn’t think I could do it under the watchful eyes of the bouncers. At that moment, most of them seemed busy with a punch-up outside the second-level toilets.

My eyes went back to the nearest poster. I thought the picture had to be old because the band members looked nothing like they had when I met them. Perhaps it was just the camera lying again. Gary looked cute as always. I kicked myself under the table. I couldn’t believe that I was about to become a fan like any silly teenager. I thought I was past that.

Sinead had never mentioned my comment at Sofie’s party. Possibly she had forgotten; after all, a lot of alcohol had been consumed that night. More than likely, she decided that it was best to pretend I had said nothing. Sinead liked Paul and wanted me to give him a third chance. I had given Paul my number but had not heard from him.

I startled when I noticed somebody beside me. I recognised the barely legal bloke from the music store.

“You decided to show up then.” He grinned. He introduced himself as Joe and started prattling. The way he talked made me feel old and the arrival of his mate even more so. I had a feeling that Joe imagined he had pulled an older woman although he hadn’t. I tried desperately to think of a way to get rid of him when the crowd collectively held its breath. I looked over to the stage and saw Jamie Jones sit down behind the drums. My problem vanished that very second when Joe leaped into the air with all the vigour of an 18-year-old. He kissed me on the cheek in a hurry, said something unintelligible and ran after his friend towards the first floor.

I moved my stool closer and hastily pushed it aside when I realised that the crossbars of the handrail were exactly at eye level. Jamie had started to hit the drums, and Alex joined him with his bass guitar. A few seconds later, Mick arrived on stage with his guitar and a mischievous grin on his face. I couldn’t help but like Mick; he seemed an honest and nice bloke.

Three musicians made enough noise and the drunken audience clapped along, not entirely in tune. The curtain at the back of the stage shifted, and Gary Rock All ran to the front of the stage. My reaction to seeing him was strange, a bit like whenever I caught my first glimpse of Johnny Depp in a new film - a gasp. Gary was dressed in torn jeans, a dark brown t-shirt with a graffiti-style print on it and red runners. His hair was shorter than the last time I had seen him, so I must have been wrong about him trying to grow it long. He had barely got to the microphone before he started singing.

Sinead and Miguel had let go of each other and moved closer to the railing. I was surprised when Sinead said something to me about Alex as I thought she only had eyes for Miguel, and although Sinead was normally not into rock music, she was happily jamming along. Miguel seemed pissed off and wrapped a possessive arm around Sinead’s waist.

The crowd gave the first song a massive round of applause. Then the room was filled with familiar tunes when ‘Jetlag’ started. I spotted Joe and his friend in the front row on the first floor. They were jumping up and down and singing at the top of their voices.

The show carried on like that almost until 12 o’clock. It was time to ring in the year 2007 and to do the pathetic countdown, a duty which fell on Gary’s shoulders. When it finally hit 12 o’clock, the nightclub was filled with such a roar that it hurt my ears. I hugged Sinead and, reluctantly, Miguel. Up on stage, the band members raised champagne glasses. When the noise finally died down, Gary announced that they were going to celebrate the new year by performing a song that everybody knew. The song in question was ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, and the crowd went mad. Even the bouncer beside us started singing.

After that, the band did another two songs I didn’t know and then Gary said they would finish on their new single, ‘Liar’. The track had a catchy beat from the start as well as a memorable and loud chorus, “There is no smoke without fire, there ain’t no fire without smoke, there ain’t no truth out of a liar”. The song was about a relationship in which one party is full of lies, even if they are only little white lies. The song ended stylishly when Gary sang the last key. The band got together at the edge of the stage, bowed and thanked the audience. Then they disappeared through the curtain to some deep, dark part of the nightclub.

Miguel returned from the bar with new drinks and quickly grabbed all of Sinead’s attention again. My glass emptied quickly, and I realised I needed the bathroom. It was starting to get quiet upstairs - most people had left straight after the gig - and I had no trouble getting there. As expected, there was a stomach-churning smell of sick and spilled beer in the toilets. I tried to get out as soon as possible while holding my breath. I ran out of the loo at such speed that I ran straight into somebody leaving the men’s toilets next door.

“Lea’s in a hurry.” He laughed, catching my shoulder to stop me from falling as a result of our collision.

Surprised, I looked into the man’s face. It was the cheerful Mick Morrison. I mumbled something resembling an apology, but Mick waved it off.

“Never mind, no apologies needed. But a pretty girl like you could certainly join us,” he said with a wink. He beckoned for me to walk ahead of him towards a door that said ‘Private - staff only’.

“But I-” I started, but Mick had already opened the door and practically shoved me into the room.

“Look who I found,” he shouted when the door closed behind us.

I started to change my mind about Mick’s honesty and likeability.

Jamie staggered over with an outstretched arm, clearly having consumed a few.

“Shots,” he said while shaking my hand. His left hand pointed towards a group of small glasses all over the surface of a table. A topless Alex waved at me from the back of the room and carried on getting into a t-shirt as if nothing had happened. On the sofa, with his feet up on the table, was Gary. He was still dressed in the same jeans and trainers as on stage but had changed into another t-shirt. His current choice advertised s*x Pistols. He looked up from the CD he had been so interested in.

“A woman. Well done, Mick.” Gary grinned. “Sit down. We’re about to go and find an after party somewhere.”

“And there’s room in the van,” Mick continued.

Hesitantly, I sat down on the sofa opposite Gary. In a gentlemanly gesture, he lifted his feet off the table.

“A drink?” he asked, raising a bottle of Aftershock.

“No thanks.”

At the back of the room, Alex was loudly explaining to Jamie how he had screwed up during ‘Liar’. Jamie was trying to convince him that the crowd had not noticed.

“But I did, and so did the rest of you,” Alex carried on. Jamie kept saying that didn’t matter.

“Alex is such a perfectionist,” Gary said to me in a confidential tone.

“Takes one to know one,” Mick mocked.

Gary gave a guilty-looking shrug.

“Tell Alex no one noticed,” Jamie asked me.

“You wouldn’t have noticed,” I said, trying to sound convincing while thinking that I couldn’t have said either way because I’d never heard the song before.

“There,” Jamie turned back towards Alex, but the argument seemed to carry on.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the bouncers stepped in. “Your lift is here,” he said. He didn’t bat an eyelid in my direction. He was about to leave, but Mick stopped him.

“Hey, John, can you do us a small favour? This lady needs her coat.”

The man called John gave me a knowing look. “I see. Does the lady have a ticket?”

Everybody’s eyes were on me. I grabbed my handbag and opened the zipper of the side pocket. The ticket had fallen to the very bottom, and it took me a while to fish it out. Mick snatched it from me and handed it to the bouncer.

“Five mins,” he said and disappeared into the corridor.

The room was full of cheerful mayhem when the band members started collecting their clothes, phones, guitar cases, mp3 players and other belongings. Mick had lost his jacket and desperately looked for it under couches before he finally found it behind a curtain on a windowsill. Jamie was asking around for a Nokia charger, but nobody had one. When John, the bouncer, returned with my jacket, nobody noticed him for all the chaos. He rolled his eyes with an apologetic look. I had no idea what I had got myself into, and I quickly texted Sinead to say I had gone home. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell the truth.

We exited the building through a back door. We zigzagged between pallets and empty kegs to an open gate in a wire fence and to a van waiting outside. We were all surprised to see a few large snowflakes in the air and a few more already on the ground.

We got into the back of the van. The band members threw their stuff all over the floor and took up the entire long seat at the back wall. I sat down on the single seat opposite them and beside a small table. The driver asked where we were going to which the general response was anywhere with a party. The driver let out an exasperated sigh and started driving towards the centre of the city. Passing the front door of Energy, we saw the crowds making their way out and their delighted faces when they saw the snow.

We had been driving for about five minutes when Alex shouted that he wanted out. The driver swerved towards the kerb at such speed that we all moved four inches to the left. Jamie quietly added that he was also going to get off, not so much because of the bar nearby but for the sake of his life. He grabbed the backpack that had drumsticks sticking out of it and jumped onto the footpath. Alex also grabbed a bag and went after Jamie.

The driver moved off, but a couple of blocks later, Mick spotted an apartment block that some of his friends lived in. He bragged that they always had a smashing New Year’s party, and again, the driver pulled in, this time not beside the kerb but on the kerb. Mick waved a goodbye and started crossing the street.

The van didn’t budge, and the driver glared at us through the rear-view mirror.

“Where to?” he snapped.

Gary gave me a questioning look. I shrugged. Everything had happened so fast that I had no idea what was going on.

“It’s kind of too late to get in anywhere,” Gary pointed out.

“As long as you make your minds up fast,” the driver urged.

Gary gave him an angered look.

“I better get home. But I can take a taxi,” I said.

“No, you won’t. The label has arranged this ride so that we can get home safely.” Gary emphasised the last word and gave the driver a meaningful look.

“But I’m not in the band,” I said with a smile.

“Well, let’s put it this way; the van is there for the band to do with as we please. And I want you to be taken home.”

The driver joined in by asking where my home was. I gave him my address, and he let out an opinionated sigh. “It’s too far away.”

Gary lost his temper. “Did you not hear what I said? The van and the driver are at the band’s leisure, I’m in the band, and I want Lea to be taken home.”

The driver opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. He moved off with the engine roaring and turned towards the bypass.

Gary shook his head and relaxed back in his seat. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, so long that I could feel myself blushing. Good thing it was dark in the van.

“So, tell me, Lea, what do you do for a living?”

I was so surprised by the question that I started to stutter. Gary had never asked me anything personal before, and I assumed that he would only want to talk about himself.

“In a phone store,” I wheezed, “I work in a phone store.”

“Phones,” he repeated, still sounding thoughtful. “Which operator?”

I explained that we were not tied down to a single operator but sold phones for most of the major ones. Gary nodded in understanding, but clearly, his thoughts were elsewhere. He thought I was boring. My eyes followed his hands when he started patting his pockets.

“Speaking of phones, I think I’ve lost mine.” He gave me a pleading look. “Any chance you could give it a ring?”

I found it hard to refuse when he looked at me from behind those long eyelashes. I found my phone, and Gary whistled when he saw the brand-new, expensive model I had.

“Perks of the job. Sometimes we get new models for next to nothing.”

“Handy,” Gary said and gave me his number. I rang it, but to our horror, there was no ringing in the van. Then, to my surprise, I heard somebody shouting ‘hello’ at the other end of the line. I quickly lifted the phone to my ear.

“Who’s this?” I asked, trying to sound bold.

“Alex. Who’s this?”

I was so surprised I was unable to answer and handed the phone over to Gary.

“It’s Alex.”

A lot of confusion followed, and Gary motioned for me to rummage through the front pocket of the bag on the floor. I located a Samsung, a couple of years old, that Alex claimed was his. Gary handed my mobile back to me with a laugh.

“Twonk. Alex took the wrong bag. Now I’m left with his phone, his clothes and all the rest of his stuff and the other way around.” He laughed again. “Alex didn’t know what was going on when the phone rang and the ringtone was all wrong. When he realised what happened, he was well pleased. Said that he’ll get lots of calls from gorgeous girls then.” He shook his head again, then looked at me with a grin. “I’m sure he meant it as a compliment to you, not that girls call me all the time.”

I smiled back but thought that Alex had meant the exact opposite.

A moment later, I pointed out my apartment block to the driver who pulled up at the path leading up to the front door. The tiled path was almost entirely covered in snow.

Before I had a chance to say anything, Gary had got up, opened the door and jumped out. I took my handbag, mumbled a thank-you to the driver, who made no reply, and stepped carefully onto the slippery footpath.

“Thanks for the lift. You didn’t need to come this far for me,” I said to Gary.

“Ah, the pleasure was all mine, and why pay for a taxi when you can get it for free?”

I had no good response to that, so I said nothing.

“Thanks for the company,” Gary said and grabbed the doorframes of the van. Then he kissed me on the cheek and wished me a happy New Year before climbing into the van and closing the door behind him. The door had barely slid shut before the driver drove off and sped out of sight.

While walking towards the front door with my hand in my bag – just how do the keys always make their way to the bottom? - I realised that a celebrity, or at the least a future celebrity, had just given me his phone number. I opened the front door with a shaking hand, and I didn’t think it was because of the cold. I didn’t need his number and keeping it would be torture.

When I got into the hall, I removed Gary’s number from the dialled numbers list.